


Slowly Mending Bridges

by Activeimagination



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 01:14:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10911297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Activeimagination/pseuds/Activeimagination
Summary: January 2018, Aaron is away on business and Robert has a visitor.





	Slowly Mending Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> Still have a few random thoughts after my story May to December and the one about the birthday night out.

Slowly Mending Bridges

In little over a month’s time he would be married. Well he was married already but now at the initiative of his husband he would be married officially. Where once he refused to publically admit to an illicit relationship he was now looking forward to the fact that he would soon sign his name to a document asserting that he was marrying the love of his life and that the man’s name was Aaron Dingle. 

It was morning but light had not yet asserted itself. Robert’s phone beeped ‘Morning Mr Dingle, breakfast eaten and about to head to the meetings xxx’. He smiled and looked back over the messages from the previous evening which were not as innocent and smiled even more. Aaron had been away for three days at this stage at meetings to do with the scrap and he missed him. ‘Morning Mr Sugden, looking forward to tomorrow so much xxx’. He swung his legs to the side of the bed and stretched. He walked to the end of the bed and peered into the cot. His daughter was just beginning to wake and he stroked her cheek gently. She had slept quite well and her mother had returned from visiting her aunt. He was going to meet her in Bob’s at ten. There were no circumstances under which Rebecca would set foot in the Mill while Aaron was away. It was part of his continual effort to show Aaron that there would never be a repeat of what happened last year. 

At a quarter to ten Paddy noticed Robert, laden with bags on his back and pushing a buggy heading towards the café.   
‘Bless him, he’s kind of struggling a bit’, Pearl said at his shoulder ‘you could go out there and help’.  
There was little chance of that but Paddy did almost feel sorry for him. This sorrow increased when the bag fell off his back and the one on the handle of the buggy joined its comrade on the ground.  
‘Gosh, with Aaron away he is barely able to cope’, Pearl said as she grabbed her coat and went out to help him. Paddy studied the interaction and to the observer it seemed that Robert was genuinely glad of the help as Pearl pushed the buggy the remaining hundred metres or so to the café. 

‘Now, Ruth is back with her mother and I told him I’d include him in the pot this evening…Are you listening to me Paddy?’  
‘Yes Pearl, I am indeed.’  
‘You could try you know’  
‘Pearl, I’m listening. Robert’s child is gone to her mother and you are going to make sure he’s fed this evening. See, I heard everything’  
‘No need to be clever. I mean you could try with him.’  
‘Pearl..’  
‘I’m just saying that he and Aaron are happy and I’m sure it would mean a lot to Aaron if you could be as well. I gather you are invited to the special meal to celebrate their second wedding’, she didn’t mention that she was not although she was going to the party to be held in their home the following weekend. 

oOo  
If someone had stopped him in the street to ask why he was about to do it he would have found it difficult to give an answer. He did not like Robert Sugden, he did not trust him, that’s what being left to die in a grain pit tended to do. Yet he had been at the first wedding and had seen the love Robert had for the man he considered as a son. He had witnessed the heartbreak at the sentence. While not admitting it he was shocked when he heard about the betrayal and had sworn that he would never give the benefit of doubt again. However from the autumn on he had noticed them around the village and there was no doubting that there was solidity to their relationship. He had seen it at close quarters on Christmas Day when Sugden had handled himself with grace on what had to be the definition of an awkward occasion. There was also the fact that a part of him envied the fact that Robert had got a second chance unlike him.

For these reasons he walked up to the door of the Mill and rang the bell. He smiled to him self at the thought that Karl King lived here once so Mr Shifty was not the first arrogant so and so to call it home.   
‘Paddy, hi, Aaron isn’t back until tomorrow’  
‘Umm yeah, actually I came to see you, if that’s ok?’  
Robert was almost at a loss for words. Apart from a few times while Aaron was in prison Paddy did not give him the time of day. He understood exactly why and he did not expect to be even able to attempt to enter his good graces.  
‘Sure, come on in, I’m just about to put the kettle on’  
‘I hear you are going to Pearl’s later’  
‘Yeah’, he laughed, ‘Pearl has taken me under her wing a bit. I think Aaron is a bit jealous actually’.

He poured the tea and sat at the table. To say he was uncertain of what the reason for the visit might be was putting it mildly. However it presented him with an opportunity to do something he had wanted to for a long time.   
‘Paddy, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you for a long time and I know that you came here but I’d like to say something first’  
‘Ok, go on’, he was glad of the chance to think of how he was going to say what he wanted to say.   
‘I know you hate me and I know that I gave you every reason to do so. What I did to you that day was unforgivable. I want you to know that I did go back, I was there just before Andy came on the scene’  
Paddy looked at him thinking that he may not have changed that much.  
‘Don’t get me wrong, that is neither here or there but I was going to switch it off. What I said to you in the hospital was even worse. I don’t know why, no that’s a lie I do know why I said it. I don’t honestly believe I meant it. There’s no way I’d hurt a child, no way’. Even now thinking of what he said made him sick.  
‘There’s no way I would have done anything to hurt someone Aaron cared for even then and I know he cares for you and Leo so much. He’s been very lucky to have had you. Look I’m rambling a bit but believe me every time I see Leo I feel sick that I could have sunk that low to threaten him. All because of money.’  
He was almost weak. It felt like ripping a large plaster off an open wound. He looked at Paddy, trying to decipher what he was thinking.   
‘I see. And I really want to believe you. To believe otherwise would mean you are some kind of monster and I don’t think Aaron would love someone like that.’  
‘If I’m honest Paddy if I never met him I don’t know what type of person I’d be today. He makes me a better man every single day. You have no idea how hard it is for me to believe I’m worth…’  
Paddy looked at him intently. This was not an act, this was a man who meant every word he was saying.  
‘He thinks you are, I may not, his mum may not but he does Robert. That’s why I’’m here. I want to be part of his life fully again and that means being kind of ok with you because I know him and he is set on you’  
‘I will never hurt him again Paddy, believe me, never’  
‘I think you mean that’  
‘I do, he is everything to me and he has been so good about Rose, so good to her too and so good with her. God I lost everything and I know I am so lucky to get it back’  
‘Why did you do it? I know you don’t have to…’  
Robert took a breath.  
‘I was angry, angry at him and myself. I wanted to hurt him and I did what I knew would do just that. I thought being in love was a mug’s game and I was going to be what I had been for most of my pathetic life’  
‘Mate, you have issues to deal with if you don’t mind me saying so’  
‘I know, Aaron has me going to a counsellor, it’s really helping in a lot of ways. As is he’. He couldn’t help but smile, ‘we do these joint be-brief sessions after our counselling. They really help too. That’s how I can see how much of a help you were to him back when he came out’  
‘You didn’t have that’  
‘No I did not but that’s life sometimes.’

Paddy looked at him and he saw a sadness there in the eyes and the vacant stare. It reminded him of a night years ago when he had confronted a young man, had tried to comfort him and then been a victim of an attack. He looked at Robert and saw a similarity with Aaron from that time and thought about how hard it must have been for him to go through all of that alone. It forgave nothing but it at least went some way towards explaining some things.

‘It can’t have been easy Robert, being away all those years, being away, trying to be who you wanted to be’  
‘There were tough days and nights Paddy. I never wanted to come back here really. That was Laurence. To drive Chrissie and me apart, it worked as it happens’  
‘That it did’  
‘Your father mentioned you in a letter that was read at the funeral’  
‘I heard, I watched from the distance when he was buried too. My father and I were very different people Paddy.’  
Robert got up and went to the sink. He knew what Paddy had done for Aaron over the years, envied the fact that Aaron knew there was an ever present man in his corner.   
‘Paddy, I…’ he began to cry a little, ‘Gosh Aaron is rubbing off on me, I know what you and Chas think of me. She and I had started to get on, I miss that very much, I would give anything to go back but’  
‘You can’t, nobody can. There’s a delete button I wouldn’t mind hitting a few times either. Chas wants the best for Aaron, he believes that’s you and’, he took a breath, ‘I think he might be onto something’  
Robert looked at him almost in shock.  
‘You do?’  
‘Beneath the veneer Rob, you are like anybody else out there trying to find shelter in a storm. He is too. You found each other and despite everything, including Chas and me, you’re still here, both of you. We might never be mates but when I see you two together I know it’s real and I know you are not stupid enough to risk it again’  
‘Never’, it was almost a whisper.  
‘I’ll be at the meal on the day you get married’  
‘It would mean a lot to Aa, no it would mean a lot to both of us’  
‘I’ll go and let you get over to Pearl’s’

oOo

He left Pearl’s half an hour after finishing eating. He was growing fond of her. Sitting on the couch he thought about the evening’s events when his phone rang. A photo of his husband smiled up at him.  
‘Evening… well yeah I have news got a visit from my father in law actually…..’ it was going to be a long call.


End file.
